#like I want to continue my rewatch of ST

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (1x08): “The Upside Down” Review

To my understanding, this episode gets ranked highly by fans and critics as one of the best in the series, and I can see why: It’s a well-paced, well-directed, and thrilling conclusion to this season, all while leaving open the possibility for a sequel. There’s a sense of everything coming full-circle, with some scenes even calling back to the Pilot: The first shot being an exterior of Hawkins Lab. Hopper at the police station with the wisecracks about sleeping with someone’s wife while Flo takes away his cigarette for his health. The boys playing a D&D campaign in Mike’s basement where they stumble across a terrifying monster in their game.

There are of course the changes the characters have gone through since the first episode, and the sense that just because they’re trying to return to normal doesn’t mean everything is that way: Mike still misses El. Hopper is still haunted by betraying El’s location to Brenner and leaves food out for her in the forest in the hopes she might be out there somewhere. Nancy still has feelings for Jonathan despite going back to Steve. Will is throwing up slugs in the bathroom while hallucinating the Upside Down. Hell, even the Gate remains open at the end of this episode, and the rot is beginning to spread from it. El may have defeated the Demogorgon, but there are more dangerous monsters in that dimension, as we will find out in later seasons.

While I love this episode (and would rank it in the Top 5-10 Favorites), I’ve always objected to the idea that the show should have ended here. This is a show that's always been ripe with potential, not just for future story prospects, but also with its cast. The Duffer Brothers were smart enough to realize that. In fact, some of my favorite moments on this show come from the later seasons, and the mythology behind Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down is intriguing enough that I want to know more about it. I also was interested in seeing more adventures with these characters in this specific time period (i.e. the 80s) that I’d grown to love. Had the show been an anthology series, or even done the time jump a decade later as they originally planned, not only would have it lowered my interest in wanting to rewatch this season, it would have been hard to remain attached to these characters, ESPECIALLY since it would have involved bringing in a brand-new cast.

Best way I can describe this is how I felt about the two-part movies based on Stephen King’s It: I liked and cared about the kids from the first movie. I had a harder time getting invested in their adult counterparts for the second movie. That’s not even getting into how the second movie felt like a rehash of the plot from the first movie. I get that the book did a better job in combining the kids story with their adult counterparts, and that the movies made changes that Stephen King fans weren’t happy with, but still.

By contrast, I never felt that way about the later seasons of Stranger Things. If anything, the mythology of the Upside Down not only remains an enigma to me (something I’ve endlessly speculated about for years), but is also a lot like an onion where you keep peeling it back and finding new layers underneath. It’s rich in lore, and so are the characters. It’s why I like and defend the tie-ins (books, comics, graphic novels, etc) in spite of how questionable they are in the overall continuity: I find myself wanting to know more about these characters and this world.

So I’m glad the show continued past season 1 with the same characters and story. If it had stopped here, I would have been deeply disappointed, and complained about all the lost potential and unresolved threads. It also helps that the show isn’t like Criminal Minds or General Hospital or Supernatural or any daytime/nighttime crime show or soap opera that have dragged themselves out to the point of rotating characters who are no longer recognizable and the writers just spit-balling storylines with no rhyme or reason. At least with Stranger Things, there's always been the sense that the writers are trying out new ideas and concepts each season, as well as how the characters have grown and the audience has been along for the journey to see that development. They planned for 4-5 seasons, and clearly have an endgame in mind, and I want to know how it all ends for better or worse.

Part 1: Brenner’s Downfall

Technically, this isn’t the end for Brenner since we know he survives and comes back for season 4. However, it is the beginning of the end for him in regards to the power he once wielded. Not just over El, but arguably with his position in the Government. When he returns several seasons later, it’s in a diminished role, and the fact Colonel Sullivan didn’t have any problem targeting him for death indicates that either Brenner outlived his usefulness to the Government, or he was a liability to National Security at that point. Likely both.

What’s frustrating is we don’t get a lot of information about what happened to Brenner between seasons 2-3. Dr. Owens tells Joyce and Hopper in the next season that Brenner and the people who worked under him are gone, but what is that supposed to mean? Did Brenner get transferred to a different department in the Government? Did he get punished by those he answered to for his role in causing the Gate to open and creating the crisis in Hawkins? Were employees under Brenner fired for their role in this as well? There’s also the question of former employees like Ray Carroll from season 2, and what he tells El and Kali about Brenner being alive, with the implication Carroll was still in contact with Brenner at the time. Either way, after the Demogorgon attack, it doesn’t seem like Brenner has the authority he once commanded. Brenner's collaboration with Dr. Owens in secret over the Nina Project in season 4 (to the point of hiding it in the middle of the Nevada desert) makes me question if he even had an active role in the Government at that point, or if he had been a fugitive for a while (courtesy of Colonel Sullivan, or even before Sullivan came into the picture) and was just taking advantage of Dr. Owen’s grace to continue to exert whatever little influence he had left.

Regardless, I did enjoy seeing Brenner get put in his place by Joyce and Hopper. Joyce has spent this entire season being gaslighted by Hawkins Lab, by her abusive ex-husband, and arguably by the Demogorgon, and she was done with all of that. She knew Brenner didn’t actually give a damn about the six people (Will, Barbara, Dale, Henry, Shepard, and the Elevator Scientist from the first episode) who were taken by the monster, or even the hypothetical sons and daughters he claimed the monster would kill. This has always been about Brenner's fixation on El and his fascination with the Upside Down, and if he has to sacrifice other people to satisfy his scientific curiosity, so be it. Joyce saw right through Brenner, and she was having none of his bullshit:

Similarly, Hopper isn’t remotely impressed by the interrogation techniques Brenner’s underlings use on him, and cuts through the crap to get a private meeting with Brenner for what is arguably his most morally questionable choice in the entire show: Giving up El’s location in exchange for a chance to save Will from the Upside Down. A choice that’s going to haunt Hopper for the next month, but one he feels like he has to make for Joyce’s sake. He is going full Lando Calrissian from Star Wars, and he knows it. Hopper also knows Brenner doesn’t operate on empathy or compassion, and the only reason he believes Brenner will spare Dustin, Lucas, and Mike is out of pragmatism: Brenner can’t afford to kill 3 kids and cover up their deaths in a way that won't raise alarm bells within the Hawkins community.

In any case, Brenner accepts the deal because it allows him to recapture El, and he thinks Hopper and Joyce will die in the attempt to rescue Will. Even if they don’t, he has the means of keeping them quiet if he needs to.

One of the characters that Matthew Modine took inspiration from for Brenner’s hair design (and arguably aspects of Brenner’s personality) is Colonel Martin Hessler from the 1965 movie Battle of the Bulge:

Based on the titular event from World War II, Battle of the Bulge is an epic war film that takes creative liberties and features fictional characters in the place of real-life military commanders, soldiers, and civilians. It’s still a WWII movie based on a real event (and a well-directed one at that) dealing with the fight between the Allied Forces and the Nazis, but not one that’s adhering to historical accuracy. In a fun bit of trivia, aspects of this film helped inspire The Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

Anyway, the character of Brenner owes a lot to Colonel Martin Hessler (played by Robert Shaw), not just in terms of hairstyle, but also in terms of his cold, detached, pragmatic demeanor. Like Brenner, Hessler is a man that commands authority, and expects those under him to follow his orders to the letter. Everything he does is from a calculated angle, and that includes sacrificing as many of his men as necessary to achieve his goals. He is also a control freak the same way Brenner is. In one notable scene from the movie, Hessler's military caravan is blown up by a land mine, which he expected his troops to have cleared out for him by this point. Furious at the loss of a tank and unnecessary time, he tells one of the officers under his command that they will go in front of his tanks to clear the remaining mines, despite knowing they will likely be killed in the process. There’s a certain ruthlessness to how Hessler approaches war the same way Brenner approaches science: Human casualties are acceptable as long as it produces desired results.

There’s a notable speech towards the end of the movie that Hessler gives to one of his underlings, Conrad, that paints his motivations in a twisted and nihilistic light: He knows that Germany has no chance of winning the war (this movie takes place in December 1944 when Germany was losing), but he still has the opportunity to prolong the war inevitably. When Conrad is shocked at why he’d want this, Hessler states it’s so he and the German Army can continue to have importance in the world, even at the expense of others getting dragged into future battles.

In a way, it makes me think about what Brenner’s future would've looked like had he survived, or if he recaptured El, or even if the Massacre at Hawkins Lab never happened. The Soviet Union was already on its last legs by the 80s and finally collapsed in 1991. What would have this entailed for Brenner? In an alternate scenario where El was still under his control but the Soviet Union was no longer a threat, I’d be hard-pressed to believe he’d ever consider ending the program. This was his life’s work, and I’m willing to bet that if he wasn’t able to get Henry/One/Vecna back from the Upside Down (since he’d been using El to find Henry in the darkness), then he would have inevitably taken blood from El to restart the program and create more psychokinetic kids for the Government. The difference being that, instead of these kids targeting Soviets, they would target enemies and terrorists to the United States. Like Colonel Hessler, Brenner would not have gone quietly into that good night, but would have prolonged things for the sake of feeling important.

In many ways, it gives a certain context to Vecna’s reasons for not just sparing Brenner at the school when he could have used the Demogorgon to kill him, but also why he may have possibly spared Brenner back in 1979: It wasn’t just enough to kill Brenner. Vecna wanted Brenner to suffer, and what better way to achieve that than force Brenner to watch as Vecna destroys his entire legacy and renders everything he ever worked for worthless. First, he murders the other special kids (except for El and Kali) who were the culmination of Brenner’s life’s work. Now that the Gate is opened and Vecna’s tapped into the power of the Upside Down, he plans to use it to burn the world while Brenner is forced to witnesses this. It reminds me of Bane’s motivation in The Dark Knight Rises for keeping Bruce/Batman alive in the pit while he systematically tears Gotham to shreds: Only after Bane’s turned everything Batman cares about to ashes will he allow Batman to die. Same goes for what Vecna planned to do with Brenner. Pettiness and deep-seated grudges are one hell of a drug.

Even without the foreknowledge of later episodes though, season 1 wasn’t subtle when it implied Brenner survived the Demogorgon. One golden rule of television is unless you see a dead body, that character always has the possibility of coming back. Plus, despite showing several covered corpses in the aftermath of the Middle School attack, we never see Brenner’s corpse:

On top of that, the Duffer Brothers weren’t exactly subtle in Worlds Turned Upside Down about Brenner’s fate:

Part 2: The Upside Down and the Demogorgon

In a similar vein to the first Poltergeist movie, the Duffer Brothers initially didn’t plan to show the Upside Down (which was originally titled “The Nether”) in order to leave it to the viewers imagination what kind of horrors lurked within. Obviously, they changed their minds about this, and for the better: The Upside Down not only continues to be terrifying four seasons in, but it feels like the audience has barely scratched the surface of knowing what this world is capable of.

I've talked about how Dark Souls was one inspiration for the Upside Down. There are other inspirations as well, including the 2009 post-apocalyptic movie The Road, where the ash-covered skies and landscape helped inspire the aesthetic of the Upside Down, as well as the influence of Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski who was known for creating pictures resembling hellish dystopian surrealism.

There’s also a very Lovecraftian type of horror on display within the Upside Down, where it features a gate resembling a breathing membrane, and the mucus, slime, mold, tendrils, and vines wrapped about various aspects of the world. As we now know from later seasons, those vines and tendrils almost act like nerves in a body that connect it to the Mind Flayer/Vecna. In fact, the way the Upside Down is presented here comes off like a dying diseased body where everything is interconnected and some kind of infection has taken root.

For right now, let’s talk about the most well-known inspiration: The Silent Hill series.

When it comes to these particular video games, it seems like there’s always one of two stories Silent Hill games will focus on: Either a protagonist with a haunted past being lured to the town of Silent Hill where the environment and the monsters within take on manifestations of the protagonists inner demons, or it deals with a religious doomsday cult called The Order operating from Silent Hill, which has desire to bring the Apocalypse that will purge the world and bring the “faithful” into paradise. Usually, this involves birthing some kind of Monstrous God via a ritual. Or in some cases (like Silent Hill Origins and Silent Hill Homecoming), they’ll combine the two story-threads into one. Either way, the town itself manifests in one of two ways: A town with a grey foggy overcast, also known as Fog World, where monsters lurk in every corner and the environment is constantly changing. And the Otherworld, which is a perverted version of the Fog World consisting of rusting metal and blood/gore that acts as “reality becoming a nightmare.” Like the Fog World, it’s constantly changing, it can be shaped by the psyche of a person (i.e. monsters manifesting themselves as subconscious fears, desires, etc), and the protagonists are constantly alternating between that world and the Fog World.

From the looks of how the Upside Down was created, the Duffer Brothers certainly took inspiration from the design of Silent Hill’s Fog World, as well as general ideas from the Otherworld of some kind of rot settling in which is causing everything to decay.  Even Will alternating between this world and the Upside Down in season 2 (which the characters describe as “True Sight” in reference to the ability to see into the Ethereal Plane in D&D) holds similarities to how the protagonists in these games are constantly shifting on the different planes, and how (sometimes) they see things other characters may not (similar to Silent Hill 2 where James Sutherland’s perception of the monsters and the town differs from other characters like Laura, Eddie Dombrowski, and Angela Orosco, who are also trapped in Silent Hill).

I’ve known for a while that some fans have speculated on the idea of the Upside Down being El’s creation from her psyche, similar to what the first Silent Hill video game did with Alessa Gillespie and how her trauma and broken mental state manifested itself in the form of monsters that wreaked havoc.

However, as of season 4 and The First Shadow, that a debunked theory. The First Shadow especially put emphasis on the fact that the Upside Down existed even before Henry/One/Vecna was ever born (since the Philadelphia Experiment took place in 1943 when the USS Eldridge disappeared into the Upside Down, allegedly marking when humans first made contact with that dimension). Dustin was likely right in speculating this world had existed for thousands of years. Monsters like the Demogorgon, Demodogs, and Demobats (some of which were likely inspired by the designs of certain monsters from Silent Hill, such as Air Screamers, Mumblers, and Groaners from the first game) were already present to begin with, and weren’t the manifestations of someone’s twisted imagination. Even the Mind Flayer, as we find out from the play, was already dominant in that world. Vecna didn’t create the Mind Flayer, so much as gave it a body via the black particles to operate with. El may have opened a Gate, but she didn’t create the Upside Down or its inhabitants.

Now, I have suggested the idea in the past of the Upside Down being malleable to a person’s psyche to form itself. It could be similar to how Silent Hill manifests the twisted fears and desires of those drawn to the town, or even “The Plane of Shadows” from D&D, in explaining why the Upside Down went from a hellish, desolate landscape to a frozen, decaying replica of the exact night of Hawkins (and likely the rest of the world) on November 6th 1983.

One movie that gets cited in Worlds Turned Upside Down as inspiration is a Russian science fiction film by Andrei Tarkovsky called Stalker (1979), which deals with a mysterious area called “The Zone” that appears one day and is sealed off by the Soviet Government because of how dangerous it allegedly is. Within The Zone, there’s a special room which grants the innermost desires of the person who comes to it wishing for something. The eponymous Stalker is someone who’s traveled to The Zone many times and can navigate around its dangerous traps and ever-changing environment, and willingly brings people to the Room in exchange for payment. One day, he’s hired by two different men, a writer and a professor, who are interested in the room for creative inspiration and scientific purposes (or so they initially claim), and takes them through the Zone to the Room. The twist is that the Room acts as a mirror to the soul, and what the person may verbally wish for in the Room isn’t what will manifest because the Room knows what the soul truly wants. The movie itself puts more emphasis on philosophical musings and debates over the science fiction elements, and the Zone itself is a green fertile land with the occasional human-like ruins as opposed to the dark desolate alien-like world of the Upside Down. However, the idea of the Room turning desires into reality is a component that I wonder might make its way onto the show. Could the reason that the Upside Down is frozen like this have to do with the subconscious desire of an individual to have the world shaped that way? If so, did that desire come from Will, Vecna, El, all three of them, or someone else?

I’m at a loss to give a scientific explanation (other than deliberate terraforming and the manipulation of matter) but given how the Duffer Brothers have stated their intention since the Montauk Pitch was to “use the mathematics and theoretical physics to ground our horror in reality,” I’m sure they have a scientific explanation for why this phenomenon happened. I just wish I could figure it out like how I figured out El and the other psychokinetic kids were connected via their powers to the Upside Down before I ever saw The First Shadow.

In any case, before we move on to other inspirations, it should be noted Hopper and Joyce’s storyline in this episode parallels the first Silent Hill game: Both involve a parent looking for their missing child in a warped dimension with the aid of a police officer. In Stranger Things, it’s Joyce and Hopper searching for Will. In Silent Hill, it’s Harry Mason looking for his daughter Cheryl with the help of a cop named Cybil Bennet. The missing child in both cases (Will and Cheryl) are wanted in the dimension they’re in for some nefarious purpose. Cheryl becomes an essential piece The Order needs to birth their new God and start the Apocalypse. In Will case, from what we’ve seen so far, he gets impregnated with slugs via a tendril that he’ll later start throwing up, with those slugs becoming future demodogs. He will also become possessed by the Mind Flayer in season 2 to supposedly act as its spy. I have speculated that Vecna and the Mind Flayer’s interest in Will goes beyond these things, and there’s another layer to this that has yet to be revealed. Perhaps it has something to do with the Upside Down freezing in time? We still don’t know yet if the frozen replica of the Upside Down was intentional on Vecna and The Mind Flayer’s part, or if they didn’t plan for this to happen and want to know why it did.

Outside of the Silent Hill Video Games, there are several other references that helped make up the Upside Down and the Demogorgon’s design. The first Alien movie comes to mind, particularly the scene of the Nostromo crew landing on LV-426 and exploring the planet, similar to how Hopper and Joyce travel through the Upside Down:

H.R. Giger was a major inspiration for the Upside Down and the design of the Demogrogon, with even certain traits of the creature paying homage to the Xenomorphs from the Alien Series. Additionally, Clive Barker, Guillermo del Toro, and Masahiro Ito (who designed the Silent Hill video games) also had an effect on the way the Demogorgon was designed.  

Clive Barker’s influence I see more in later seasons, specifically in regards to the Hellraiser characters of Pinhead (who shares similarities with Vecna) and The Leviathan (who shares similarities to the Mind Flayer), so I will go more in-depth about those parallels down the line.

Guillermo del Toro’s influence I can also see in the Demogorgon, particularly the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth that Ofelia encounters during her quest, and how both monsters are thin, have long arms and legs, look humanoid but aren’t, have a greyish-white skin complexion, and come from the underworld.

While we’re on the subject of descending into the Underworld, let’s talk about the Demogorgon’s origins. And not just the D&D version of the Demogorgon either.

Demogorgon in mythology is described as a type of God or powerful demon that rules the underworld. There have been many variations through-out history, but the most common origin comes from Statius’s Latin Poem Thebaid, where it is introduced as “the sovereign of the threefold world.” It’s also believed this being was present in Lucan’s Pharsalia, when it’s mentioned by a witch as a threat against those she’s controlling. While this being is not initially named (with the narrator refusing to speak its name), author C.S. Lewis believes that a misconstruction was made from the world “demiurge” (which was Plato’s name for an artisan-like creator of the material world) by a scribe named Lactantius Placidus, resulting in the name Demogorgon. From there, the word took on a life of its own among literary scholars, usually being referred to as a God, a being of Chaos, or some kind of “Terror Demon.” “The Prince of Darkness” has also been a common name.

Famously, John Milton referred to the Demogorgon in Paradise Lost, which detailed Lucifer’s fall from Heaven and his plans to corrupt humanity:

By them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance, And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild, And Discord with a thousand various mouths. (Paradise Lost, 11, 963-67, ed. 1674)

This was Milton’s take on the Demogorgon:

Accordingly, I find it stated by the most ancient writers on mythology that Demogorgon, ancestor of all the gods, whom I note was also called Chaos by antiquity, begot the Earth among many other children whom he had begot. She, by an undetermined father, became the mother of Night; although Hesiod somewhat otherwise would make her the offspring of Chaos, as in the monostich.

Italian writer Boccarrio also gave his take on the Demogorgon:

“The principall and first of them all, and who inhabited in the middle of the earth, encircled round about, & circumuested with a dark and obfuscate cloud, breathing from his mouth a certaine liquid humiditie: but herein I proceed no further, having no further warrant for such depicturane.”

Additional examples of Demogorgon being refereed to in literature include Christopher Marlow’s Doctor Faustus (when the titular character invokes the name of the Demogorgon when summoning the demon Mephistopheles), Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queen (“Downe in the bottom of the deepe Abysse, Where Demogorgon in dull darknesse pent, Farre from the view of gods and heavens bliss, The hideous Chaos keepes.”), and in Prometheus Unbound by Percy Bysshe Shelly, where it overthrows the Roman God Jupiter, and is described as “the ultimate Power, behind and above all things that are, even the gods themselves.”

There’s a dark irony in how a misconstruction of a Greek word led to the creation of a being of chaos with a power that transcends the Gods, and how its entire existence is an accident that shouldn’t have happened but did. And now people are terrified of it. In comparison to the show’s version, the Demogorgon in literature comes off as an ancient Eldritch Abomination that’s so beyond human understanding that it can’t be described in a way that makes sense. The closest the show ever got to this kind of being was with the Mind Flayer, but even its motivations can be broken down to simplistic terms regarding survival and remaining the dominant power in the Upside Down. By contrast, the Demogorgon from literature is just there when it shouldn’t be, with almost a cold indifference to how it fits into the universe’s hierarchy, which arguably makes it more terrifying.

So it’s fascinating that when D&D introduced its version of the Demogorgon in 1976 in the supplementary rulebook, Eldritch Wizardry (and likely took inspiration from the previous literary references I just described), they gave it a physical description while still attempting to keep the aura of terror surrounding it. The Demogorgon in D&D is a demon lord, otherwise known as “The Prince of Demons,” that is 18 feet tall, has blue-green skin plated with snake-like scales, has the body and legs of a giant lizard, has two snake-like necks, a thick tail that is forked, tentacles for arms, and two heads that resemble those of evil baboons or mandrills. These two heads, named Aameul and Hethradiah, are separate entities sharing the same body. Aameul prefers deception whereas Hethradiah prefers destruction. According to the 1977 Monster Manual, “His [Demogorgons] appearance testifies to his command of cold-blooded things such as serpents, reptiles, and octopi.” To give context, these are some of the drawings of the Demogorgon from Art & Arcania: A Visual History:

Its physical description is nothing like the version of the Demogorgon we see on the show:

The Demogorgon on the show does keep with some of the traditions of its D&D and literary counterparts. Both monsters are ancient beings from the abyss (the abyss in this case being the Upside Down), both are considered The Dreaded, and both are ferocious to the point you’re lucky if you go toe-to-toe with it and come out alive. However, Stranger Things depicts the Demogorgon as a mere animal (albeit a powerful one) under the control of the Mind Flayer and Vecna. By contrast, the Demogorgon in D&D had a mind of its own (or two minds given that it has two heads) where it can think, can cast spells, has a gaze that can either hypnotize people or drive them insane, has the ability to experiment and create creatures of its own (chimeras, merrows, ettins, etc) and even has a cult of its own that worships it and is organized into warbands that leave a trail of destruction in its name. Some of these followers are even troglodytes (i.e. the monsters Mike references in the first episode that attack the Party during Mike’s game before the Demogorgon’s arrival). This video gives more information about D&D’s version of the Demogorgon for those who are interested:

I want to be clear that I’m not disparaging the show’s version of the Demogorgon. The design the Duffer Brothers came up with is unique, and I’m not surprised it’s become iconic in popular culture. The reason I bring up these different literary references and inspirations is to give a clearer picture regarding the thought process that went into creating this version of the monster and the world it originated from. Mythology is an ever-evolving process, and there are plenty of monsters, entities, and lore from long ago that writers will be keen to explore and put their own spin on. Look at how many different stories there are regarding vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and what rules/aspects are followed from previous lore, or what is added in to enhance how these beings are perceived.

Likewise, understanding what inspirations were used for the Upside Down might give insight into how this world operates and where they could take the story in season 5. Regardless of what they reveal about why time froze in the Upside Down, it’s clear something is broken and has gone seriously wrong. From this, I foresee one of two things happening: Either the Upside Down is permanently destroyed, or there’s something that needs to be fixed that will bring balance between both worlds and, while it won’t destroy the Upside Down, it will render it obsolete as a threat to the characters. I talked about this in my second review when I was drawing possible parallels between The Dark Crystal and the Upside Down, but given the last two episodes are called “The Bridge” and “The Right Side Up,” it makes me lean a little towards the latter idea of fixing something within instead of the world's permanent destruction.

Part 3: Joyce, Hopper, and Will

I can’t imagine Hopper’s choice to give up El’s location was an easy one, but damn if it didn’t cause him to feel immense guilt about it. He likely was counting on El’s powers being able to help her escape so that he could find her later, because otherwise I don’t think he’d be able to live with himself knowing El was once again trapped as a lab rat for Brenner to use. Either way, it was a dangerous gamble that almost didn’t work.

I don’t really know what to say about Hopper’s flashbacks to his daughter dying of cancer, other than it’s depressing as hell, and the revelation in season 4 about Hopper being contaminated with Agent Orange and other chemicals from the Vietnam War only makes these scenes harder to watch. Considering he already has an unhealthy lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and smoking, it makes me wonder how much borrowed time he has left. Fans might say they’re not going to kill Hopper off since they faked his death once in season 3, but that’s not a guarantee, especially in the last season where the Duffer Brothers need to up the stakes. Brenner also looked like he died in this season, only to come back later and then get permanently killed off. Just because a character cheats death once doesn’t mean they’ll do it again.

Earlier this year in regards to season 5, they revealed they were doing casting calls for actresses that looked similar to Sara from Hopper’s flashbacks in this episode. That makes me think one of three things: Either they’re going to have Hopper undergo another journey in season 5 (likely related to El) that triggers specific flashbacks to his time with Sara, similar to this episode where his search for Will and certain things he sees (i.e. the stuffed lion, and the tendril in Will’s mouth) remind him of his daughter’s illness. Or (and this is based on what I’ve heard other fans speculate) the flashbacks could be a dying dream Hopper has where he meets his daughter again in a spiritual sense. The third option is that Vecna creates some kind of vision/hallucination of Sara to torment Hopper.

I didn’t think about this at the time, but given the twist about the Upside Down, I was curious about what Joyce’s house in the Upside Down looked like. Obviously, the hole Will briefly communicated with Joyce through in “The Body” has closed (similar to what happened to the rift in the tree that Nancy crawled through), but I was interested if they were going to show the wall where Joyce had put up Christmas lights in correlation to the letters of the alphabet she had spray-painted to communicate with Will. Instead, Joyce and Hopper just walk past it, with the camera not even focusing on it. I know it’s a small thing, but given the Upside Down froze on November 6th, 1983 and Joyce wouldn’t spray-paint the alphabet and put the lights up until November 9th, 1983, this means that the alphabet on the wall shouldn’t have existed in the Upside Down when Will was communicating with her. So when Will was using the wall, how did he know which letters to press, which light represented a certain letter, or that there were even letters on the wall to begin with?

I ended up going back to The Other Side (i.e. the comic that focuses on Will’s time in the Upside Down) to see what explanation they would give, and this was it:

Yeah…….given the direction season 4 went, and the revelation this dimension froze exactly on November 6th, 1983, the letters just appearing on the wall in the Upside Down is questionable at best, and a plot-hole at worst. In all fairness, I had forgotten about this bit in the comic, and while I have cited certain scenes from The Other Side in previous reviews since they offer some explanations about what was possibly going on with Will during season 1 (as well as how Jody Houser, the writer for the comic, worked with Netflix when developing this), I’ve tried to be careful about claiming the comic is canon. I know I suggested that it could be at the time when I first reviewed it, but that doesn’t necessary mean it is. I do believe there was information given to Jody Houser about what Will was doing during certain scenes from the show, and while there are certain aspects of the comic (like Will distracting the Demogorgon so Nancy could escape through the tree) that I like, I also recognize that if the Duffer Brothers wanted to, they could render this entire comic non-canon.

In any case, the best explanation I can think of for how Will was able to communicate with Joyce is that she told him through the lights what she planned to do, and that the lights he would see on the wall in the Upside Down would correlate with a letter from the alphabet.

Another small aspect is regarding whether the Upside Down’s atmosphere is toxic. I know the scientist at the beginning warns Joyce and Hopper that it is, but I’ve questioned this for several reasons:

We saw Nancy go into the Upside Down a few episodes ago with no biohazard suit on, where she was exposed to the environment and breathing in whatever particles were in the air. Yet we never see her in later episodes have any side-effects from it. No respiratory problems. No weird mutations on her skin or body. No cancer or infection developing. Nothing.

Same with Joyce and Hopper. The scene where they’re performing CPR on Will has them taking off the masks that go with the biohazard suits they’re wearing. And they had them off for well over a minute while breathing in the particles in the air. Yet they also don’t develop any abnormalities.

This isn’t to say I don’t think the Upside Down isn’t capable of altering someone’s physical or mental health (as we see with Will at the end of this episode through season 2, and even with Henry/One/Vecna in season 4), but considering we have characters in this season AND season 4 that are in the Upside Down with no protection on and yet don’t feature any health problems later, that makes me question if the atmosphere itself really is that toxic, or if the claims that it is are an exaggeration.

Finally, in regards to Hopper and Joyce saving Will, am I the only one who found it suspiciously easy how they were able to rescue him without encountering any other monsters? I get the Demogorgon was busy dealing with Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve, and would later attack the middle school, but I think if Vecna and the Mind Flayer really wanted to prevent Will from leaving, they could have sent a legion of monsters after Joyce and Hopper to butcher them on the spot. If Will was rescued, it’s because they wanted him to be. And I don’t think it’s just because Will was impregnated with the slugs either.

Part 4: The Monster Hunting Trio (Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve)

The scene with Nancy and Jonathan cutting their hands at the count of three reminded me of the berries scene from The Hunger Games with Katniss and Peeta. Both cases involved the characters doing something suicidal, with the difference being Katniss and Peeta intended to commit suicide unless the Capitol backed down from reneging on the two-victor rule, whereas Jonathan and Nancy intended to lure the Demogorgon out with their blood to kill it, and had every intention of surviving.

I am curious about the Demogorgon’s attraction to blood considering the revelation it’s being controlled by Vecna/The Mind Flayer. I’ve already said before in previous reviews that season 4 recontextualizes the Demogorgon's actions, making them seem more calculated than that of a regular animal. So when the Demogorgon comes for Nancy and Jonathan (and later attacks the middle school because of the blood spilled from Connie and the other agents), is it doing it because the Mind Flayer (or Vecna) allows it to, or does the attraction to blood overwhelm whatever control they have on the Demogorgon? I’m thinking specifically about the Taxxon’s never-ending hunger in the Animorphs series, and how even when they were infested with Yeerks, that hunger could overwhelm the Yeerk’s control of their host. Does a similar principle apply to the Demogorgon here? Considering what we see with D’Art in season 2 (where his affection for Dustin allowed him to temporarily overcome whatever programming the Mind Flayer had him operating under), it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility to suggest that the hive mind’s hold on these creatures isn’t absolute, and that certain things (i.e. animal instinct, affection, blood, etc) could allow it to temporarily break free.

In any case, the way the Demogorgon attacks Nancy and Jonathan suggests that, even if it was attracted to the scent of their blood, it doesn’t mean it was stupid and didn't notice the traps they’d set up. It refuses to follow them down the hallway where the bear trap is, disappears briefly, and waits for them to come out of the room before it strikes. When it does appear again, it doesn’t break through the walls or the ceiling like last time, but almost quietly pops out of the ground behind Nancy and Jonathan and takes them by surprise. The only reason it even ends up in the bear trap at all is because it didn't anticipate Steve showing up again to attack it with the spiked bat.

Speaking of Steve, there’s a dark irony in that he came to apologize to Jonathan and make things right, only to get dragged into something that would change his life forever. He wanted an explanation two episodes ago about what Nancy and Jonathan had been doing, and he got it. Be careful of what you wish for, as the old saying goes.

I find it telling that he went to Jonathan’s house first as opposed to Nancy’s, and his surprised reaction to seeing Nancy indicates he didn’t expect her to be there. To his credit, he doesn’t react with possessive jealousy or wrongful assumptions like he did last time. The mere fact he was at Jonathan’s house and wanted to speak to him tells me he was there to try and make peace. I’ve said before that Steve doesn’t get any pleasure in being cruel to others the way Billy and Angela do, and I believe he was genuine in wanting to apologize for the vile things he said to Jonathan earlier in the day. Considering we didn’t hear his car pull up, I wonder if he showed up earlier when Nancy and Jonathan were laying the traps and was trying to muster the courage to talk to Jonathan. He was ashamed of what he did and how he acted.

I found it sad but also unintentionally hilarious when he was trying to apologize to Nancy, and Nancy tells him she didn’t care about that. Which is true. For her, the theater incident probably feels like a lifetime ago given everything that’s happened in the past 12 hours, and the last thing she wanted was Steve getting dragged into something that could get him killed. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do a good job convincing him that everything is fine, and he’s perceptive enough to realize something is off. His reaction of panic, horror, and confusion at the state of the house, at Jonathan and Nancy’s aggressive (but also understandable) behavior, and seeing the monster itself is pretty much how I’d expect anyone to react in that kind of situation. I’m sure fans at the time season 1 first aired got a kick out of Jonathan and Nancy telling Steve to “Shut Up,” but I still feel bad for Steve. He came to apologize, and got pulled into a nightmare.

For me, the first time I started to soften towards Steve was when he came back for Nancy and Jonathan. At that point, he had an out. He could have run, and almost did, and then saw the lights flicker again, and he knew what that meant: If he left, Nancy and Jonathan were going to die. And he knew if he went back, he could possibly die as well. Regardless, he still went back to save them. Steve’s story reminds me a little of the arc Lt. Weaver has in Battle of the Bulge, where he starts out as callow and irresponsible, but after his sergeant saves his life from a massacre (similar to how Jonathan and Nancy save Steve from the Demogorgon), it inspires a change in him as he strives to live up to the rank he has, and puts his life on the line, to the point of becoming a Spanner in the Works for Colonel Hessler. Much like how the Demogorgon under Vecna’s control didn’t expect to get attacked by Steve (either because he didn’t notice Steve initially, or he did and assumed Steve would be too cowardly to face him).

A big reason for why this is one of my favorite scenes in the show is how all three of these characters played an important role in temporarily defeating the monster. I made reference to this when I first rewatched in preparation for season 4, but the bat is the perfect metaphor for each character’s contribution: Nancy is the one who found the bat and came up with the plan to lure out the Demogorgon and kill it. Jonathan is the one who (along with Nancy) set up the traps, and even built the spiked bat. Steve is the one who ultimately wielded the bat and put it to use. Neither role overshadows the other, and all three of them end up saving each other, which keeps things balanced and doesn’t let one character outshine the other. Jonathan saved Steve the first time the Demogorgon broke through the ceiling (and warned him about the bear trap during the rescue). Nancy saved Jonathan the second time the Demogorgon came back by shooting at it (which didn’t kill it, but it did get the thing off Jonathan). Steve saved Nancy and Jonathan by taking the Demogorgon by surprise and causing it to get caught in the bear trap. Jonathan is the one who put the finishing touch by lighting the thing on fire. It may not have destroyed it, but it certainly injured it badly enough to flee (similar to what happens to Vecna during the Battle at the Creel House in season 4).

Even at the time, despite not being in the fandom, I was aware of the phrase “Monster Hunting Trio” which stemmed from this scene. I can see the appeal of it in a Fire-Forged Friends kind of way, and while I wasn’t eager about Steve getting back together with Nancy, I wasn’t opposed to the idea of him being her friend, or even him and Jonathan becoming friends. Sadly, the Duffer Brothers never capitalized on this afterwards, and with the introduction of other characters like Robin, Eddie, and Argyle (or the formation of new friendships like Dustin and Steve), they ended up moving away from this initial pairing in later seasons, with Nancy, Jonathan and Steve pursuing separate arcs. For what it’s worth, some of the BTS photos they’ve released for season 5 indicate that Steve’s storyline may be connected with Nancy and Jonathan, so we may still get some variation of the “Monster Hunting Trio” before the show is over. I would rather see that over another love triangle drama-fest over whether Nancy will end up with Steve or Jonathan.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about the ending regarding these three:

I remember at the time having mixed feelings about Nancy going back to Steve (and to my understanding, so did Joe Keery, Charlie Heaton, and Natalia Dyer when they were told about that decision). Like I said, I had warmed up to Steve (even if he wasn’t my favorite at the time), but I wasn’t eager for Nancy to get back together with him after everything that happened. Plus, I was on board the Jancy ship at the time (and still am).

On rewatch, my feelings are still mixed, albeit for different reasons. Considering Jonathan’s introverted nature of closing himself off to other people outside of his family, as well as Will’s return from the Upside Down, I can understand why he didn’t immediately jump into a relationship with Nancy. They may have bonded over the week in their quest to save people they cared about, but once Will came back, Jonathan went back to what he’s usually done: Prioritizing his family. I don’t say that to fault him. I get why he did it, and he may have even felt like he wasn’t ready for a romantic relationship at that point, even if he had feelings for Nancy.

In regards to Nancy and Steve, the revelation that it took a month before she restarted her relationship with Steve (because she was waiting for Jonathan during that time) is something I have conflicting feelings about.

On the one hand, it shows that, regardless of Steve coming through for Nancy in the end, it doesn’t mean she automatically forgave him for what he did or immediately went back to him. I’m okay with this because I think she had a right to be mad with Steve (even if Steve was remorseful about it), and it also infers that Steve likely had to do some major damage control during that month regarding the rumors that got spread about Nancy and Jonathan, as well as put in the elbow grease to demonstrate he had changed. Considering the direction Steve went after season 2 when their breakup was final and she had moved on to Jonathan, I believe Steve would have put in the effort to be a better person REGARDLESS of whether Nancy took him back. This wasn’t being done for her benefit only. He was making the changes because he despised the person he became, and didn’t ever want to go back to being that way again. We even see this in the time jump when it’s implied that he had a hand in helping get Jonathan a new camera for Christmas, and had Nancy be the one to give it to Jonathan without claiming credit for it. We’ll talk more about Jonathan and Steve’s relationship in season 2, but the inferences I’ve gotten from watching the show is, even if they didn’t become best friends, Steve was genuinely trying to be amicable with Jonathan from this point onward.

Then there’s the matter of Barbara and how it impacted Nancy. I think a big reason she went back to Steve when Jonathan wasn’t available was because she needed someone to talk to about what happened, and Steve was the only other person she thought could understand where she was coming from. The first two episodes of season 2, and even tie-in novels like Rebel Robin, all but confirm this, and how it impacted their relationship going forward.

Personally, I’m still not thrilled that Nancy and Steve ended up together at the end of this episode, but I’ll go more into my thoughts about it when I cover season 2.

Part 5: The Party and El

I forgot to talk about Nancy and Mike’s reunion in the last review (sometimes it feels like I’m juggling so many balls in regards to talking about characters, dynamics, plot threads, theories, etc, in each review). Since this episode starts with Mike being worried for Nancy and Jonathan when El tells him they’ve gone after the Demogorgon, now might be a good time to mention I loved their awkward hug in the last episode. Even Mike’s unconvincing “Yeah uh……me too” in regards to missing her was both funny and heartwarming. He may not be good at expressing it openly, but he is concerned for Nancy’s safety, and he likely would have gone running to Will’s house if El had been able to remote-view, saw Nancy and Jonathan there, and told Mike that. Even the conversation they have in the previous episode where they claim they won’t lie to one another anymore………only to lie again about their feelings for El and Jonathan respectively……….they have enough of an understanding of each other to get where the other is coming from.

Mike’s conversation with El prior to Brenner’s arrival feels bittersweet in hindsight. While I’m glad he would later get to dance with El at the Snow Ball in season 2, I’ve always wondered how things would have gone if Mike’s scenario of El coming to live with him at his house had come true. It would have saved El an entire month living in the woods for sure, but we also wouldn’t have gotten the Hopper/El dynamic from season 2 onward (which did feature important character development for Hopper and El) and I question whether this would have made things easier or harder for El. The fact is (as we see in season 4) El was always going to have a hard time adjusting to what a “normal” life would look like, where she’d be expected to go to school, know the same things other kids her age would know, and try to find a way to fit in. I also question what her school situation would have been like. In Lenora, when she was deprived of her powers and still trying to catch up with her peers, she was treated as stupid by the other students and teachers, and got viciously bullied for being an outsider and the weirdo. If she had gone to school in Hawkins, would it have been a similar situation? On the one hand, she would likely still have her powers during Middle School, but she would also be hard-pressed not to use them against bullies unless she wanted to get in serious trouble.

There’s also the question of what would’ve happened if Mike had gone the opposite direction where he'd abandon his family and friends to go on the run with El. I’m thinking about the endings for Let Me In and Let The Right One In (both of which served as inspirations for Stranger Things) where the main protagonist (Owen/Oskar) becomes a fugitive after his vampire friend (Abby/Eli) kills the bullies who planned to drown Owen/Oscar after he split the head bully’s ear open with a metal pole in self-defense. The movies leave their final fates ambiguous, but it would have been an interesting angle to explore with Mike and El had they taken it. How would both of them being forced to run from the Government and Mike’s life being upturned have impacted their relationship going forward?

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Mike’s relationship with El. I’ve seen criticisms regarding how quickly these two fell in love and whether it was rushed. Some of these criticisms have a point whereas others come off as fans misconstruing things.

On the one hand, I agree that a week is a pretty short length of time to truly get to know someone, and there are aspects of El’s life that Mike doesn’t know about yet, and visa versa. I also think age factors in here in that they’re both young, and this is the first time they’ve had a romance like this, which means mistakes were going to happen. That’s also including how both Mike and El didn’t exactly have stable blueprints for a healthy relationship: El spent her entire life up to this point being abused by the other kids at the Lab and groomed by Brenner, to the point she became starved for affection (which Brenner manipulated to his advantage), and Mike is the product of a loveless marriage between his parents and also has his own issues being bullied. Those influences were eventually going to impact how these two moved forward, to the point I’m not surprised there are still problems as of season 4. I’m specifically thinking about the fight Mike and El had after El put Angela in the hospital.

This is why I question whether El coming to live with Mike would have made things better or not. It may have given El a lot more time to adjust compared to her experience in Lenora. And without the year gap where both were pining for one another and then spent the time between seasons 2-3 not wanting to be apart to the point of causing problems, it would have allowed both Mike and El to become familiar enough with one another and their flaws that they wouldn’t have idealized versions of that person in their heads that they both felt like they had to live up to in each other's eyes. That’s also including how El would be surrounded with more friends in Hawkins, which would have given her more of a stable support group than she had in Lenora.

That being said, some of the other takes I’ve seen tearing into this relationship range from being nonsensical to just flat-out untrue (and I question how much of that has been influenced by the shipping wars in this fandom 😒). Like this idea that Mike only ever cared about El because of her powers and being a “superhero,” which not only is debunked in the second episode when he was helping and comforting El way before he ever found out she had powers, but also was explored in season 4 and shown to be untrue there as well. Or the idea that the relationship is shallow and superficial and only based on puppy love because of how they act in season 3 (which I will address when I cover that season, but doesn’t automatically discount the instances of deeper love these two felt for one another that we see this season and afterwards). There’s this fixation these days with portraying the relationship as toxic to an almost comically ludicrous degree, which is an interpretation that involves taking A LOT of things out-of-context. Does the relationship have its problems like any other relationship out there? Yes. What relationship (especially one between two kids) is ever going to be perfect in a Disney “Happily Ever After” way? Does it automatically erase any positive aspects? Hell no.

Mike’s relationship with El led to essential character development for both of them. Not only was Mike allowed to be vulnerable around El without being judged for it (like when she empathized with the bullying he was subjected to under Troy and James), but also allowed Mike to find an inner strength he didn’t realize he had within himself to be able to stand up for his friends and risk his life to keep El safe from both Brenner and the Demogorgon. Likewise, El found someone she could connect with who cared about her as a person, who showed her kindness and affection when she needed it, and who wasn’t going to use her the way Brenner had. That scene at the school where she rejects Brenner as “bad” while calling out for Mike says it all.

Speaking of the school, the fight between the Party, Brenner’s men, and the Demogorgon all feature elements that will make an appearance in season 4. Connie’s death for instance, while satisfying to watch, reminds me of what Vecna did to his victims where their eyes would also bleed.

El doesn’t go to the extent of mutilating Connie and Brenner’s men like Vecna would have, and even though she kills them, I don’t believe she consumed them the way Vecna does. We’ve never gotten any indication that El takes the essence of a person into herself the way Vecna does to give himself more power. I’ll talk about this in later seasons, but in many ways, it makes El more formidable than Vecna in that she’s able to channel an inner strength while keeping her sense of self compared to Vecna who's stolen the essence of others to power himself and has become increasingly unstable as a result.

The Demogorgon’s attack on the school reminds me of the way the Soviet Demogorgon from season 4 attacked its victims: Quick, direct, vicious, and angry. Unlike at Joyce’s house, it’s no longer doing the slow stealth approach now that it’s furious and covered in burns. There is still some degree of control, like when it spares Brenner or even when it confronts the kids in the science classroom and slowly advances on them when they have nowhere else to run, but it’s not playing games anymore.

Then there’s the scene of El dissolving the Demogorgon the same way she dissolved Henry/One/Vecna in 1979:

What I’m curious about is why El’s use of her powers on Vecna didn’t kill him, but banished him to the Upside Down, whereas the use of her powers on the Demogorgon was implied to have destroyed it? And then there’s that particular power itself, which seems to activate on a subconscious level in the most extreme circumstances, and was the biggest indicator that El’s powers were linked to the Upside Down (which The First Shadow confirmed). However, unlike in 1979, where El only created a temporary gate that closed in on itself while she still remained in Hawkins Lab, El’s attack on the Demogorgon results in her being transported to the Upside Down, almost like she’s returning to the source of her power. Was this simply because she was closer to the Demogorgon than she was to Vecna, or does the Upside Down have some kind of pull on individuals who carry its power, and can manipulate that energy into drawing in those individuals connected to it (like El and Vecna)? ). I even question if El truly understood what she was doing in both instances with Vecna and the Demogorgon, or if the remaining power within her took over in these moments and directed her with what she needed to do. Season 4 heavily implies that the Upside Down is almost like a live energy source for Vecna to draw from (hence the vines connected to his back when he uses his powers to kill his victims and create gates). Since El was nearly depleted by the time the Demogorgon showed up (to the point Dustin was having to carry her as they ran), was her being pulled into the Upside Down when she used the last of her strength on the Demogorgon about returning to the source at the direction of the Upside Down without her realizing it?

There’s also the connection with X-Men #134. The comic Will and Dustin raced for in the first episode that also served as foreshadowing for El’s confrontation with the Demogorgon in this episode. In the comic, Jean Grey, having broken free from Mastermind’s control over her, drives Mastermind to insanity by sending his consciousness throughout reality while overloading his brain with all the truths of the universe. However, because of Mastermind’s manipulations, which undermines Jean’s already unbalanced mental state, the Phoenix persona within her has been unleashed, and the comic ends with it taking complete control of Jean. Those who know about X-Men and the Dark Phoenix storyline know that the Phoenix Force was an entity that embodied a dark, raw power that served as the nexus for all psionic energy (i.e. extrasensory perception, telepathy, psychokinesis, etc) that could cause destruction on a grand scale. This entity would bond to Jean Grey as a host, with devastating consequences for the X-Men.

By comparison, while El appears to have control of her powers on the surface, there is an interesting question if the Upside Down exerts some kind of unconscious influence on El in certain instances (like with her confrontation with the Demogorgon and being pulled into the Upside Down). We see something similar with Henry/One/Vecna in The First Shadow with the corrupting influence of the Mind Flayer and the ambiguity regarding instances when Henry was in control vs when it looked like the Mind Flayer was using him as a vessel to exert its power. Could some form of this be happening to El without her awareness?

Finally, there’s El’s fate. Worlds Turned Upside Down reveals that, originally, the Duffer Brothers had planned for El to sacrifice herself, but changed it when they realized the show would go on for longer than one season and they needed El to make the story work.

Like I’ve said before, I believe the Duffer Brothers had material regarding the story and characters that would allow the show to go past one season (and even admitted they had planned out Vecna’s character from the beginning), but they also were working within the parameters of a TV show production, which was contingent on this season being successful for the show to continue onward and explore more of the mythology they had mapped out. Thankfully, it was. It’s why I don’t mind the change regarding El’s survival. The common theme I’ve been trying to convey in these reviews is just because changes happen to characters or plot-related elements doesn’t mean they’re bad. The Duffer Brothers realized there was more to explore with El’s character (just like with Steve) and decided to capitalize on it. I’m glad they did because the mythology surrounding Hawkins Lab and the psychokinetic kids has been one of the biggest draws for me.

Final Thoughts:

Fun fact: That camouflage bandana Lucas wears during these last 3 episodes was at Caleb McLaughlin’s request. I don’t know what the Duffer Brothers told Caleb at the time about Lucas’s family, but considering Charles Sinclair is a Vietnam veteran, and Lucas carries his father’s supplies from that war, it comes off as one more way Lucas is channeling his father, both to honor him and mimic what he thinks his father would do in the situation Lucas is dealing with.

Will’s friends visiting him in the hospital and infodumping everything that happened to them during this season was amusing, and a brief spot of happiness in their reunion. Will was probably grateful they weren’t asking him yet to recount what happened to him in the Upside Down.

I liked seeing the D&D game towards the end of the episode with the Thessalhydra (a monster we may see in season 5 if the vision Vecna showed Nancy of “a giant creature with a big gaping mouth” is anything to go by), and the subtle change of Dustin encouraging Will to fireball the creature instead of advising him to cast a protection spell like last time. It’s subtle, but it shows Dustin has learned that sometime a best defense is a good offense, which is a strategy he will employ in the later seasons.

I know there’s been some speculation about how Joyce could afford to get Will an Atari for Christmas given their financial situation. Considering how everyone believed Will was dead and the strain it put on the Byers, I wouldn’t be surprised if people in Hawkins felt bad for them, and for what they believe Will went through, and sent money to the family as a “We’re sorry you were put through this” donation. It’s also possible the Government may have given her a nice bribe along with the hundreds of documents and NDA’s they forced her to sign to keep quiet.

There’s also this article regarding Will’s disappearance that can be seen at the police station:

Because there’s another news article in season 2 that contradicts what’s being said here, I’ll talk about this when I review that episode. Long story short, I see the contradictions owing more to misinformation being spread about Will’s disappearance (as well as Hopper, Joyce, and Hawkins Lab getting their story straight to cover up what happened) as opposed to a plot-hole. Media gets stuff wrong all the time, and isn’t immune from spouting incorrect information (to say nothing about all the conspiracy nuts out there who muddy the waters).

For song choices, I’m not going to cover the Christmas songs since they’re there to capture the seasonal change, but I will cover the song everyone remembers from this episode: “When it’s Cold I Like to Die” by Moby. This is the song that plays when Hopper and Joyce are trying to resuscitate Will in the Upside Down.

This song also plays in the season 4 finale when Eddie and Max are dying after the Battle at the Creel House. The circumstances there parallel what’s happening in this scene where one life is being saved (Will and Max) while another one dies (Sara in Hopper’s flashback, and Eddie). This song emphasizes a sense of loneliness, loss, and unmistakable grief. In a way, it sounds like a resigned acceptance of the inevitability of death. “I don’t wanna swim the ocean. I don’t wanna fight the tide. I don’t wanna swim forever. When it’s cold, I like to die.” There’s also the theme of letting go of what can’t be controlled in regards to whom death comes for. “If I holler, let me go. If I falter, let me know.” Hopper couldn’t save his daughter from the cancer that killed her, but he can save Will here.

Finally, to end on a more positive note, here’s another Funko Pop that I managed to get my hands on: El’s confrontation with the Demogorgon.

[ochretreemoss]

Stranger Things 4, what kept me up at night

I am rewatching the fourth season because why not, and it's bringing back a lot of demons I had. I loved many thing in ST4, but many things also annoyed me to no end. We got the continuity errors, like Robin's bangs in that one scene, but then we got my personal trio of antagonists that kept me from rewatching the season for a long time.

The Never-Ending-Bucket-Pulling

At the beginning of this scene, Joyce is pulling the bucket at the top of the branch. Now, using your full arm lengh, this should take 5-6 pulls, maybe 7. When we arrive at the first image, we are 5 seconds in, and already three pulls. At the second image we are 10 seconds in, and seven pulls, the bucket is nearly at the top, then dead ass we get four more pulls. What do you mean? We were one pull away from the branch why are we doing more pulls? Then we cut to the kids and their mother, Joyce is out of the screen but we can guess she's still pulling (I did not count those in since we can't see her doing them). The we get to the last picture, 15 seconds in, and the bucket is halfway there ? HUH? it was already halfway there at 5 second in and it took her 10 more seconds to get the bucket halfway there?? Keep in mind that she kept on pulling during those 10 seconds.

It took her 3 pulls to get halfway there, then from the beginning of the third image to the end of this never-ending-bucket-pulling, it took her 2-3 pulls, so overall, Joyce took 5-6 pulls to get this bucket at the top, and like 8 seconds, so why tf did we get 10 more seconds and 7-8 more pulls than needed in the middle of it all to get it up there?

Newton can fuck off

This one makes me mad. Do I have to explain? The disrespect for the basic physic laws? Please don't make me.

I don't care if it's Sci-Fi, ST takes place on earth, the same earth with the same gravity, and the same laws of Force as our earth, this has been established through out the entire serie. Yes there is a second dimention, but the second dimention answers to the same laws of gravitation and force and shit as the first dimention, the portals between the two are just like cuts between the cloths of space and time, nothing more, nothing less. The Gravity. Stays. The. Same.

The first image is totally possible, if, and only if, the exact same mass of sheets is on one side and the other. Let me show you in maths. Left will always be Upside Down, right will always be the Real World. MS = Mass of Sheets. G = gravity (of UD and RW). NameS = Somebody's strengh applied to one or the other side.

First image is this ; MS x Gud = MS x Grw. The two same garvities are opposites, so they maintain the sheets in place. Imagine two humans, with the exact same strengh pulling on one side and the other of a rope, the rope would not move.

Second image, now I'm getting angry ; MS x Gud + RobinS =/= MS x Grw. The two are simply not equal. The sheets aren't heavy enough for Robin to not be able to pull them towards her, if she could pick them up from the ground, so 'fight' one gravity, she can pull them down from the other ground, so 'fight' the other gravity. Plus she got the force of the Gup with her. So she sould just have to pull a tiny bit on the sheets, so that there's more MS on one side than the other, and then the whole thing would just come falling right down. Her pulling with her whole strengh and them simply not moving is not possible.

Third image ; siiiiiiiight. MS x Gud + Robin'sWholeFuckingBody =////////= MS x Grw. No. No, just fucking no. There is no one on the other side pulling the sheets towards them to add a force to the RW side so that the sheets don't move. There is nothing. This is not possible, and every time I see it on my screen I get rationally angry. Respect the laws you have established, you hypocrite.

You don't want to respect Newton's Laws ? That's fine. Then don't established them as real and accurate in the world you have created for 4 seasons straight, only to break them out of nowhere. Espessially when you can fix it all with one simple trick : you tie them. Anything, a door handle, a window, something from one side to the other that cannot be move when a human pulls on it.

The lights

I simply did not buy that. Since the beginning the lights get weird when someone or something walks past it, or a supernatural being uses their powers. When there's a disruption in the fields of space and times. No one extended their arms when walking past the lamps of the UD, they just walked past it and the lights on the RW got weird. Now, if the lights got even weirder, if they shone even brighter when touching the glitters then when simply walking past it, then yeah why not, but no, their weird-state doesn't change whether they just walk past it or directly disrupt the glitters, so what's the point? also we never saw those glitters, and we saw many lamps in the upside down throughout the seasons.

I still love many things, The Nina storyline is great, Max's and Lucas' too, Hopper's as well. I got beef with the Mike-Will-Jonathan-What'sHisName's story line, and I cannot stand how the whole Joyce-Murray story line isn't serious one bit, these two are just clown-characters at this point, Murray's dialogues are jokes over jokes and Joyce always gotta make funny faces in the back ground.

That's it, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[gunilslaugh]

Hiii, i know you’re not doing requests, but can you do this when you are? I just finished rewatching bring it on and I was wondering what it’d be like if Y/n was a cheerleader for (any xh member) football player. Just take this thought and make art with it <3

-🫧

Here it is 🫧! I know you've been waiting a long time for it, so I hope that you like it :)

Goo Gunil Summary: Gunil was a football player and you were a cheerleader. For rival schools. WC:~1.2k Warning:none

photo not mine credits to owner.

“Y/n be sure to cheer for our team at tonight's game,” your friend teased you as you guys were packing up after practice. 

“Who else would I cheer for if not our team?” You shook your pom pom lightly before putting it into your bag. 

“Their quarterback.” Your friend gave you a playful back. 

“It’s not my fault that library boy turned out to be their school’s quarterback,” you say, swinging your bag over your shoulder. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Library boy, alternatively known as your crush. You first met him at the local library. You wanted a book that was just out of your reach on an upper shelf. While you were struggling to reach it a sudden warmth appeared behind you and you saw an arm reaching above yours, grabbing the book that you wanted. 

“This the one you wanted?” the guy checks, sticking the book out to you.

“Yes, thank you.” Your cheeks flushed a light shade of pink as you took the book from him.

“You have good taste. I like that book,” he comments. 

“I haven’t read it before, but I like books of this genre,” you said. 

“You should like it then. It’s good.” 

“I’ll take your word for it.” With that the two of you parted ways. Your eyes followed him as he made his own way over to a table, taking a seat. You looked down to the book in your hands and smiled. You couldn’t wait to find out if it was as good as the cute guy said.

You continued to take trips to the library with hopes of seeing him again and pleasantly enough you did keep seeing him. He was more than happy to talk to you about the book you checked out last time. He wanted to know if you enjoyed it as much as he did. 

With time the two of you started talking more. Exchanging book recommendations and reading together in the library. 

To say that you were shocked when you saw library boy standing on the other side of the field, wearing your rival school’s football uniform was an understatement. 

“What’s with that face?” your friend asked you. 

“Remember library boy?” you say. Your friend follows your eyes to where you’re looking on the other side of the field. 

“Don’t tell me,” they said. 

“Number 19.” you pointed. Your friend bursts out laughing. 

“What are you gonna do now?” they questioned. 

“I don’t know,” you say, continuing to stare across the field. 

“Y/n is betraying us,” your friend played.

“I am not! It’s not that serious anyway,” you argued. 

“Then go talk to him.” They push you lightly. 

“I can’t, not before the game,” you resisted. 

“You’re right, that wouldn’t make either of you look good. Conversing with the enemy.” Your friend continues to tease you.

Gunil was equally surprised to see you standing on the other side of the field wearing the rival school’s colors on your cheerleading uniform. 

“Dude why do you seem out of it? We’re about to play, focus,” Gunil’s teammate, Seungmin, tells him. 

“I am, it’s just-nothing I’m fine,” Gunil replies, grabbing his helmet. 

“If you’re fine, why have you been staring at our rivals for the past couple of minutes?” Jiseok chimed in. Gunil sighed. 

“You remember that girl I told you about? From the library,” he said. 

“No way! Does she go to our rival school? Where?” Jiseok interrogated looking around. 

“There, putting a bow in their friend’s hair,” Gunil pointed you out. 

“So you’ve been crushing on our rival this entire time, traitor,” Seungmin teased. 

“I’m not a traitor! It’s not like I knew,” Gunil defended. 

“Now that you know?” Seungmin challenged. 

“I still like them. It’s not that serious anyway,” Gunil states. 

“As long as you don’t lose on purpose,” Jiseok notes, making Gunil glare at him. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You haven’t come to the library for a while. Are you avoiding me?” Gunil came sitting across from you at a table.

“Why would I be avoiding you?” You closed your book to look at him. 

“Cause I’m the quarterback of your rival school’s football team,” he says. 

“And I’m a cheerleader for your rivals, but let’s be real it’s not that serious. I’ve just been busy with cheer practice since we’re getting closer to championships,” you explained. 

“Good, I was a little scared you were actually avoiding me,” Gunil admits. 

“Because we’re rivals?” you chuckled. 

“I know it sounds kinda silly, but yeah,” he answers. 

“Wanna know a secret?” You leaned closer over the table. 

“What?” he asked, leaning in.

“I know a couple people from my school who are dating people that go to yours,” you whispered. 

“Are any of them a football player and cheerleader though?” he quipped. 

“So maybe we’d be the most scandalous couple,” you say.

“But we’re not a couple yet,” Gunil gives you a cheeky smile. 

“Then we’re not scandalous at all,” you smiled back.

“I’ll ask you after we win against your school,” he proclaims. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“No it’s not, but doesn’t this game decide if he’ll ask you out or not?” your friend asked. 

“He did say he’d ask me out when he beats our school but…” you trailed off. 

“But?” your friend inquired. 

“If our school wins, I’ll ask him out,” you tell your friend. 

“No way! Are you serious? Will you do it in front of everyone?” Your friend shook your arm violently.

“Maybe?” you shrugged. 

Once you arrived at the field your eyes naturally traveled across to the other side to look for Gunil. A smile appeared on your face once you saw him with his teammates warming up. Gunil happened to look over, catching you staring. You lifted your hand and waved at him. He happily waved back. 

“Waving to the enemy in broad daylight?” One of your cheermates came over to you. 

“Please, she's planning on asking him out if we win.” Your friend came up. 

“Seriously? What if they win?” they asked. 

“Then he’s going to ask her out,” your friend answers. 

“You guys made some type of deal or what?” your teammate asked. 

“No, he doesn’t know I’ll ask him if we win,” you disclose. “Oh I’m so invested in this,” they say. 

“Forget it. We should warm up,” you state. 

It was a close game, but in the end your team won by two points. While your school was busy celebrating you started to make your way over to the other side of the field. 

“Go get your man!” your friend called after you. Your walk across to the opponent's side of the field definitely did catch some people’s attention and bring questions about what you were doing. Gunil was one of them. 

“Y/n, what are you doing?” he questioned once you reached him. You pulled out a sign that you were carrying behind your back. “Be my boyfriend?” the sign read. 

“Be my boyfriend?” you asked. Gunil laughs happily. 

“I was supposed to ask you,” he says. 

“But my school won, soI’ll ask you instead.” You lifted the sign up a bit, gesturing for him to answer. 

“Yes, I’ll be your boyfriend,” he answered. You dropped the sign down to the ground and threw your arms around him in a hug. 

“He said yes!” his teammate, Jiseok, yelled. You feel your face heat up as Gunil’s group begins to cheer for you two. Gunil picks you up and spins you around.

“Sorry that you didn’t win,” you say as you and Gunil are heading out together. 

“It’s ok. I won something much better,” he tells you, interlacing your hand with his, giving it a squeeze. 

taglist: @purplelady85 @gingerjunhan @chewednails @ezlynkisses @mon2sunjinsuver @mxlly143

comment or message me to be added!

[yearnstarved]

2025 rp resolutions

things i'll continue doing/start doing it more:

commenting on all your posts

sending nonsensical unprompted asks

adding/rotating more female muses within my roster

finishing threads (?) LMAO

message people with headcanons and impromptu AU ideas

asking for ships jdskdj i'm so laid back in the sense that i wanna see if there's chemistry and i'm okay with feeling things out. but then i get in the mood to send ship-centric memes and i don't have people to harass /j

2025 rp wishlist

not a plot wish, but this is a reminder to me that i want to take bones off as a private muse and put him in threads with new muses. i will conquer the self-consciousness!

i'd love more lower decks threads, like all of them. i actively fall to my knees and have emotional outbursts over them once a day. i can always toss mariner into a time portal to meet with other ST universes

cyberpunk AUs? not named after the game but i'd be stoked to worldbuild a general cyber dystopian world with people. @criticalfai1ure i'm still very much going to still bug you about leland

let clara pick your muse up as a companion for her space travels. it's only slightly dangerous for you, and lethal to everybody else!

i really want to get gillian up and running. if not for her ST verse, i will make any AU for her to complete the OC-ification process of a minor canon character

shamelessly plugging the need for more twelve/clara and six/peri threads. you all know who you are. let us run a human nature arc and stir up chaos

still very much down for anything thriller/serial k.iller centric. i just rewatched all the Screams and started watching Dexter again

[faeleven]

7B - which had good ideas but suffered because Moff was too busy with the anniversary to edit - managed the revelation that the companion the Doctor believed was supernatural was actually an ordinary woman much much better, because the narrative was constantly pointing out that the Doctor’s fixation was both incorrect and unfair to Clara.

This was more like if Neville was revealed at the end to be the chosen one after following Harry Potter for seven books. You can’t lead the viewers to a conclusion, pull the rug from under them and then laugh at them for not getting it when they were never provided the dots to join.

happened to see this ask right after rewatching the bells of st john but yes exactly! 7b wasn't moffat's best work but he clearly had the conclusion planned out from the start and that was reflected in how the narrative treated clara and the doctor, whereas rtd was setting up something totally different from what he ended up doing. with clara, the doctor (and the audience to an extent) go in thinking she's some crazy, weird, impossible thing, but in 7b itself all the signs continually point to her being an ordinary human and the doctor just ignores that because of his fixation on her "mystery". the exact opposite of s14 where no one thought ruby was anything but human until RTD started surrounding her with weirdness and specifically drawing attention to it. the message he's sending to fans is "don't try to analyze my writing or predict* where I'm going with things, because I don't care about thematic consistency and will just pull plot points out of thin air"

*caveat that I don't necessarily think a twist should be predictable, but I do think that looking back after everything is revealed, you should be able to feel that it was done with intention and not by spinning a wheel.

it's hard to have any real analysis of this series because it doesn't have that sense of being crafted intentionally. some episodes in it were good, but as a whole it's incoherent. any discussion of its themes or ruby's character is necessarily either extremely shallow or driven by fan theories that have taken what little the writing gave us and run with it.

RTD says he wants to provoke reactions, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think he's going about it all wrong. if he made something that had genuine depth and was thought-provoking, fan discussion would naturally follow AND would keep going for a long time. instead he's chosen to chase after moment-to-moment shock value and soundbite reactions, and as a result I don't see this new version of doctor who having much lasting popularity.

[girderednerve]

rewatched 1x02 of the vampire show

continuing my theory about there being a background line that establishes the episode thesis relatively early on: there isn't a line that stands out to me, so maybe that was a dumb idea! but i think the boring, awkward little anecdote the salesman tells is interesting; the broken-down horse, the shiny new tractor; the shining golden frontier palomino, the creep of capital-intensive farming that turned the prairie into a dust bowl. i'm not insisting that the show writers were like 'and then everyone will vaguely recall that one chapter about tractors from the grapes of wrath, which they read in the ninth grade,' i'm just saying that's what i thought about: this guy's daughter & his job & his weak sales pitch, replacing something beautiful & fragile with something powerful & new & unalive

i like when they're coming back from the cemetery & louis is wearing lestat's caped greatcoat. when we first see lestat from behind in 1x01, he's standing under a streetlight in his old-fashioned overcoat, serving dracula; now louis is transformed, & he's wearing it. nice detail

lestat has a much more compelling sales pitch. 'you alone beneath the rising moon can strike like the hand of god' okay man you can just say you want him to top. well, i guess he kind of did. but it is an articulation of what vampirism is to lestat, & i think it's interesting! lestat is saying, 'death is beautiful, our purpose is to witness it,' and louis is like 'that is murder you are insane,' because that is not his particular brand of unhinged protagonism. anyway thinking about the idea of beauty for beauty's sake, nina auerbach's observation that the referent for dracula was oscar wilde in the dock

i love watching louis eat the lawyer. i mean murder is wrong. i love watching louis eat the lawyer. i love his cream suit. i love his angry little hiss. i love jacob anderson's shoulders. i love how he says "subject verb agreement sir." i love watching louis eat the lawyer

i remain a little skeptical of louis' narration, perhaps unjustly. in 1x01 he says 'i was being hunted, and i had absolutely no idea,' but he must've had some idea that lestat pursued him? if lestat was following him around all the time & staring at him like that & having wild powers & so on? is there not some model here where louis liked being the object of lestat's desire, even though he clearly did not want or consent to all parts of that desire? i don't think this diminishes the harm lestat did to louis, obviously, & it makes me sad to imagine that louis might

cf. louis & the theater: in 1x01, he tells his family he fell asleep, but lestat says otherwise; in 1x02, lestat invites him to the opera, he rolls his eyes, and then looks enraptured once he's there. 'he had a way about him,' but louis is just faking it with the tenor; okay, but i don't believe you, louis! you are staring intently at the tenor with a look of wonder on your face! i think he saw the appeal & rejected it, which is more interesting anyway but is worse if you believe in Thought Crimes (are catholic)

off-topic but i read part of a fic where louis is reading paradise lost, which the author seemed to believe is a catholic text? which is sufficiently incorrect to be comical. but please consider how much fun one could have with st. augustine's confessions: not only does it have that very famous part about stealing for the sake of stealing, which i think is very much how louis thinks of lestat, it is also sort of an origin point for western memoir. does louis imagine his interview as a sort of confession? he has to, right? at what point do we think daniel figures out that louis has called him here to shrive his soul lmao

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I'm not too long out from my screening of Sonic 3 (for reference it's 3pm rn and my screening is at 7pm) so decided I'd just sort of hash out some final pre-release thoughts. I'm looking forward to this one! Quite a lot!

It's been long enough since the first and second movies released to where I don't remember my pre-release thoughts on those quite as well anymore but I mean I was definitely dreading the first one and then the second one was a full on cautious optimism type approach. Of course the first movie I was right to not be anticipating but the second movie surprised me and I came away really glad. I've since rewatched it and found I didn't like it as much the second time around, and of course since then we also had the Knuckles series which, for as hilarious as I found it, didn't exactly inspire confidence. But everything in the leadup to movie 3 has been a lot more exciting I feel and as we approach the proper release date and tons of like popular Sonictubers and streamers and whatnot have gone to the premiere and come out the other end loving the movie, promising that it's easily the best one, Fadel saying those final 30 minutes were like the best of his life or whatever, review scores clear the first 2 movies, I'm hype, I'm going in with high expectations.

I'll also say I'm fortunate in that the literal day before movie 2 came out I was spoiled on Super Sonic as well as Shadow's post-credits tease but so far I should be going into Sonic 3 unspoiled apart from what's in the two main trailers as well as, uh, well. Some toys have already released featuring a certain something lol. But hey I mean we sort of expected that, so that's cool. Don't know post-credits teaser(s?) at all and I'm gonna probably be off of tumblr and twitter and careful on youtube for the rest of the day so I'm feeling good about my odds.

We have already learned that Sonic movie 4 is gonna be entering production with an expected release date of 2027, and yeah I mean no surprise there. First 2 did great and this 3rd one is projected to do great, they weren't gonna stop making more of a successful thing. Absolutely have my problems with the "Sonic Cinematic Universe" including just that term itself, but I really am glad they're a thing because they've rejuvenated public interest in Sonic in such a huge way and I don't think any of the amazing titles we've had since then would've come out as good as they had been without them. Shadow Generations alone justifies the existence of all 3 of these movies. I can only hope they'll continue to see success and thusly we'll get better games with better storytelling and more of an inclusion of the supporting cast to go alongside this.

I'm not really worried about how movie 3 is gonna be as a whole but on a more individual level I do hope some of the comedic dialogue is toned down in frequence, I can only take so many pop culture references a minute before I explode. "Konnichi-whaaaaaaaaaaat?" better have been just a trailer line because I don't want to hear that in the cinema. Obviously I'm expecting the movie to mostly be about Sonic and Shadow with a sort of Gerald and Eggman second place, but I hope Knuckles and especially Tails aren't too sidelined to achieve that, cause Tails has had a rather poor showing in the SCU as it were and I think he deserves more.

I guess my one other thing is that my main hope for the movie (other than "it's good" and "they do Shadow right" and "they don't do the things I'm worried about") is that we do actually spend a fair amount of time in the London and Tokyo parts of the movie. I'm not actually desperate for this to be the case like I wouldn't be disappointed necessarily but everyone loves place Japan and London is close enough to me to feel familiar and so spending a fair amount of time in both would be like a point at the screen and go woo moment for me. Or something.

No matter what I feel coming out the other end of this movie I am still gonna wish we got like really stylised animated movies instead of this live action CGI blend that Hollywood loves, truly being more faithful to the games and their worlds and the series' musical history especially would be very much preferable to me, but also it is what it is. We're 3 movies and a TV series and a confirmed 4th movie deep, I can move on, this is just what the Sonic movies are gonna be. I'll talk hopes for the 4th one sometime down the line, presumably after I've seen 3 lol.

Think that's everything I really wanted to say. I'm not anywhere near needing to leave yet so I'm gonna do some other stuff today first and whatnot, but hey, see you guys on the other side.

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "The Future of the Force"

Adventures in babysitting, Rebels edition!

You already know what I'm going to say, I never get tired of the pretty planets in this show.

This baby is named Alora, a bit of a Shout Out to Lucasfilm's underground cult classic Willow. No I have not watched the new show I have... not heard good things.

That it's Alora's grandmother that's the one traveling with her brings up some ah... disturbing Fridge Horror regarding her parents.

My theory: They 100% dead, Inquisitors already shanked them.

Ohhhhh you can tell from the horror in grandma's eyes she knows exactly why they want the baby.

Well nice to know Seventh Sister is equal opportunity Bad Touch.

Aaaaaaand there goes Fifth, murdering all the witnesses.

Zero fanfare, just to punctuate the horror of that moment.

After five episodes of doing other stuff offscreen, Ahsoka finally decides to pay the main narrative a visit. I did and do still appreciate that the writers kept Ahsoka to a minimum, like Vader, knowing full well her presence would overshadow and overpower the others. Despite how easy it would have been to fanservice TCW carryover watchers by giving her tons of screentime, she stays mostly as a tertiary character throughout.

Which is why cramming what is essentially the Rebels sequel material into a show where she's the headliner annoys me.

Ahsoka and Kanan quipping about how neither of them are technically real Jedi is both cute and sad.

Ahsoka still deeply in denial about what she sensed when scanning Vader.

Lol this whole moment. Love Ahsoka's fond little headshake.

Love this city design, got a very St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia aesthetic to it.

Some of that influence in the music here too.

Oh wow, Zeb jumps out of the Phantom before it's even finished landing, lolol what a drama queen.

Bit sloppy to leave the transport hanging in that planet's airspace, unless the Empire plans to blow it up later.

Even without showing any of the bodies you know everyone on that transport is pretty much dead. It's really only the limits of the rating that prevent us from actually seeing them.

Grandma looks a lot paler here, I don't think she survives much longer past this point.

I talked about it before in "Always Two There Are" but I love subtle little bits of continuity like this, Zeb learning binary in order to understand Chopper, since he had such a hard time before.

THIS HITS A BIT DIFFERENT WHEN YOU'RE A PARENT.

All I'm thinking is, "How long have they left that poor baby there?! Oh gosh she must be so hungry. Is there AC in there? Did they change her? I bet they didn't even change her, the bastards."

This whole episode reminds me SO strongly of the arc in TCW when Sidious contracted Cad Bane to steal Force Sensitive children for him. Would not be surprised if they were being used for the exact same purpose.

Is it me or do a LOT of Force Sensitive children seem to be born to impoverished single mothers? I wonder if it's a deliberate narrative choice sometimes, to lean into the adoption metaphor that being given up to and raised by the Jedi Order often is.

He's so empathetic Imma cry.

Chopper's actually doing a decent job of keeping Alora happy lol.

Lol, Zeb being grossed out by the Ithorian baby.

I think he's adorable, personally.

Maybe it's the mom in me but Zeb holding Pypey is just... super cute.

He's actually holding him mostly right, giving him plenty of support.

Pypey is just sensitive enough to recognize the danger the Inquisitors pose to him. :(((((((((

A very fragmented "Shenanigans" cue here, barely more than a few notes. Almost as if the danger is stifling the fun and whimsy that leitmotif usually signifies.

It's Ezra that recognizes the ID9 Seeker and makes Kanan stop, and they move in a very nice synchronized way to hide from it here.

Underrated Papa Wolf Kanan moment: Kanan yanking Ezra back from the hallway junction just before the Inquisitors get within eyeline.

I shouldn't laugh but this whole scene with Zeb and Kanan and Ezra having no clue how to calm Pypey is so relatable.

(Babies be temperamental and sometimes you just gotta hold 'em.)

There are so many little cute background moments of Ezra snuggling Pypey or making faces at Pypey aaaah they're so cute.

The detonator Zeb dropped gets flung back at them, Fifth's doing no doubt.

Kanan keeps putting his hand on Ezra's back on the stairs, it's sweet.

Fifth and Seventh sniping at each other lol.

Here's one of the moments of background Ezra being adorable with the baby.

<333333

Ezra gets agitated when Kanan suggests he's going to be luring the Inquisitors away, ouch, poor boy's still not over the thing in "Call To Action".

Friiiiiick Ezra sensing Pypey's fear and Pypey sensing Ezra's and them stuck in a cyclical loop. :((((((

I too ramble at my infants like this. Lol.

Ezra unlocks the secret to calming babies: Being calm yourself. <3

Obligatory "Seventh's voice actress is married to Kanan's voice actor" mention.

The smoke effects on this show continue to be excellent.

Someone, I think it was @pep-no, theorized that Pypey's special ability in the Force might be compelling honesty. That or connecting with Pypey made Ezra more emotionally open, because he normally would be smarter than to blurt out where the Rebellion is hiding in a spot where he suspects Seventh's seekers might be listening.

(Then again, Ezra tends not to have any kind of filter around people he trusts.)

I definitely think there's room for that interpretation, given Ezra's floating, distracted gaze.

Kanan does really well in his brief clash with Seventh.

Zeb hauling him like a piece of luggage is still funny tho.

I love this environment. Feels very downtown LA.

A very heroic muted trumpet version of Ezra's theme as he steps forward bravely here.

<333333

Protective little badass.

Also love Pypey being entranced with the lightsaber and trying to touch it. Baby no.

I love this cue. I haven't watched enough Clone Wars to discern if it's a carryover theme but it's awesome.

Ezra's confidence in Aunt Ahsoka. <333

*grumbles* Stupid auto anti-epilepsy features, it makes it so hard to see properly here.

I do like how effortlessly Ahsoka deals with the Inquisitors here.

<33333

Chopper spinning the babies, awww.

Love how the ID9 comes to perch on Seventh's palm, it's so weird and animal-like. Like she's holding a jellyfish.

Ciffhanger reveal DUN DUN DUN.

This episode is so cute. It doesn't really effect much, besides emphasizing how dangerous a world it is that new Force Senstives are being born into (even moreseo than when there was a Jedi Order to take them in and shelter and protect them) and leading into the next episode's plot but it's a fun little romp with our characters and I just find it sweet and heartwarming.

Which we needed before the next episode's plot-heavy-ness.

[wheelercore]

Some more concrete thoughts on Steve's advice to Robin, the triangle mirror in Nancy's ballerina box, Tammy Thompson rosemary imagery, and how this all connects to Rose Robin?? i.e I actually bothered to rewatch some scenes from s4 and I'm Noticing Things.

First of all, I just want to point out- I do believe Brenda's earrings are triangle mirrors. As you can see, these two shots have just a few moments between each other (I got frustrated a started pressing the screenshot button randomly so this was a happy accident) and her earrings clearly glint in the light.

Which leads me to going back to earlier in the episode when Steve and Robin have this conversation:

Steve advises Robin to just "be herself", which then goes into Robin making the point that she can't ask Vickie out because it's risky for a lesbian like herself. So clearly, despite it not being stated, what Robin and Steve are discussing here is heteronormativity. For valid reasons, Robin won't make her interest in Vickie known. We see it later in the pep rally:

Steve and his triangle mirror wearing date pass right by on front of Robin and Vickie.

Then we get Robin almost be honest to Vickie and then go back on it:

(also I just noticed that the Hawkins basketball team is literally called the Tigers. They spend all of s4 hunting down the Hellfire club. "The people of Hawkins being the true predators and the UD is just a reflection of its true nature" looks truer everyday. All the animal symbolism in this show is interesting because they literally spell it out to us in s4 that one of the main continuous theme is this concept of a "predator" and how the disenfranchised in society are scapegoated when the true people praying on the weak are those like Jason and Brenner. Abusers, bigots, etc etc. All the owl and tiger symbolism makes sense when you think about it- owls are nocturnal predators and so are tigers, like the UD beings whom we see are mostly active at night.)

Steve and his triangle mirror wearing date are behind Robin and Vickie while they watch Tammy perform, and let me tell you, she is clearly has. a lot of rosemary imagery.

The white and soft pink outfit. The ribbon around her waist. The lacey floral (?) gloves - similar to the wedding dress in the Creel attic. The pearly cross earrings and other pearls on her dress. Blue eye shadow which is more of a Karen-Angela thing I suppose but we also see it with Brenda.

An interesting thing I've noticed is that Steve, Robin, and Vickie joke about Tammy sounding like a Muppet- ie a puppet:

Which I don't need to explain what the symbolism behind a puppet is, but it goes with the themes of plays/performances that already exist within ST (Performing in this silly, terrible play- Henry). Particularly for women who are expected to perform in specific ways: docile, pure, and quiet. Speaking only to regurgitate what someone else is making you say.

Flash forward to Nancy and Robin planning to go to Penhurst and we get another triangle mirror in the ballerina box and the ballerina on front of it also the pink roses on the box itself

Again, the ballerina falls in line with the "performance" theme. A ballerina is a performer, not only that a particular type of feminine performer. Beautiful, graceful, and agile.

Which Robin comments that she is uncomfortable in her "Rose Weaver" outfit:

Which is interesting because you watch Robin get increasingly uncomfortable with the neckline/ribbon itself over her throat as the director talks down to them. Only when Robin stands up for both of them and calls out the directors misogyny (I mean most of what she said was lies but my point still stands), and breaks the performance after Nancy tells her to let her do most of the talking, is when they are able to talk to Victor.

All this puppet/performance imagery reminds me so much of Rosemary's Baby, how Guy Woodhouse spends the entire movie manipulating and deceiving her as if she were a puppet.

Also, random note, but Angela has little pearl like things on her earrings at the rink-o-mania (and blue eye shadow like Tammy and Brenda)

[dominickeating-source]

Connor Trinneer And Dominic Keating On “Disrespectful” ‘Enterprise’ Finale And Eagerness For More Star Trek

MARCH 14, 2024 | BY: ANTHONY PASCALE

Two stars of Star Trek: Enterprise held a panel at the ST-SF convention in San Francisco last weekend. Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating covered a lot of ground, discussing some of the ups and downs of the series, their hopes to appear in new Star Trek, and the future of their podcast.

Finale was a “misstep”… wanted more Trip/T’Pol and Section 31 for season 5

After four seasons, Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled, ending 17 years of original Star Trek programming (and four series) that had started with The Next Generation in 1987. Executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman decided to turn the finale (“These Are The Voyages”) into a what they called a “love letter to Star Trek” by bringing in Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis to reprise their Next Generation roles, framing the story. This decision proved controversial with fans, and both actors agreed it wasn’t a proper finale for the series. Dominic Keating talked specifically about how a recent rewatch made him feel:

“I just watched that episode on [Star Trek: The Cruise VII]. I had seen it in times past and it has not bothered me. This time, I have to say it really bothered me… Particularly—and I love Jonathan and Marina—but to see them jauntily wafting around our last episode like nothing’s going on, and it ticked me off. It didn’t in the instance. I guess as an actor, I was like ‘We’re done’ so I was moving on to get another job. But when I look back now twenty years on, yeah it was disrespectful—I think to Scott and to our cast. I understand that Rick and Brannon were wrapping up a very long sojourn of an unparalleled TV accomplishment of 17 years on a variation of a theme. It is incredible. But I think it was a misstep. We should have had a standalone episode to end our series.”

That being said, both agreed they had fun working with Frakes, especially in the scenes when he was playing Chef in the galley.

Connor Trinneer and Jonathan Frakes in “These Are The Voyagers” (Paramount)

Had the series continued, both actors had some thoughts on where they would have liked to have gone with their characters:

Trinneer: “I would have been interested to see what kind of relationship that Trip and T’Pol would could have actually had. That would have been an interesting storyline. They were going to try once every seven years to have a baby, so that would have been interesting.” Keating: “That Section 31 stuff was quite fun, wasn’t it? That would have been worth some exploration. I believe they’re actually in Toronto now exploring it without me. And you know, Malcolm was always good to be captain eventually. Good British captain, I would say.”

Connor Trinneer at ST-SF 2024 (Photo: TrekMovie)

Ready for more Star Trek… any Star Trek

There were a couple of funny moments when the idea of returning to Star Trek came up. First was this exchange with moderator Ryan Husk…

Husk: I don’t know how aware you are of the new Star Trek shows going on… Keating: We are aware of them. We are legacy, you know. Husk: So the question is, they come knocking on your door or texting your… [simultaneously cutting him off] Trinneer: Yes! / Keating: Yes! [laughing] Husk: Would you be willing to not reprise your roles but play a different role? [simultaneously cutting him off again] Trinneer: Yep, yep, yep. / Keating: Absolutely, keep talking… This is so easy.

Later a fan returned to the subject with a specific idea…

Fan: My question is a follow up… I’ve always thought that the best way to continue an animated series. If Paramount came calling… [simultaneously cutting him off] Trineer: Yes. / Keating: Yes. [laughing] Fan: Where would you like to see the stories go? Trineer: I don’t care. I just want that Paramount check. Keating: Probably in space, but I don’t really mind. Trineer: It could be broken in the shop the entire time. Keating: Animation is fun to do, you can show up in your shorts and tee shirt. Ask the Lower Decks people.

Connor Trinneer as Charles “Trip” Tucker and Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise (Paramount)

That time Bill Gates came to the set

When asked about funny or strange things that happened on set, Connor recalled a specific visit.

“Early on in season 1, I was taking a nap in my trailer and a PA knocked on the door and said, ‘Bill Gates is here.’ I was sleeping and I was like, ‘Who?’ ‘Bill Gates, he wants to take a picture.’ And I was like, ‘Can I stay in my robe?’ And I did.”

Both agreed that the billionaire founder of Microsoft didn’t care what people were wearing: “He could not be happier.” So if you’ve ever seen the picture of Bill Gates on the set (below), now you know why Connor is in a robe.

Bill Gates visits the set of Star Trek: Enterprise

Future of their podcast

Two years ago, Trinneer and Keating began The Shuttlepod Show on YouTube, which mostly featured the pair interviewing various Star Trek guests. In December, Keating announced he was leaving the show and last month Trinneer did the same. The subject of the future of the podcast came up a couple of times during their panel and Keating gave some context as to what is going on:

“As you know The Shuttlepod Show—let’s address the elephant in the room—has had to go away in its current iteration for Hollywood reasons. But we are talking about bringing it back. I think we’ll be back within six to eight weeks or something like that. So please watch that space… It was just untenable in its current status, that’s as much as I can say. But I hope you can forgive that and come and support us again when we reemerge like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.”

Later on, Keating indicated that details on a return have to be worked out.

“This weekend is going to be the first weekend we’re talking seriously with some people. Whether or not we come back? We’re not sure. [Connor injects: Wait and see] Yeah, wait and see. It would be sort of different. I’m not sure what we’ll call it right now. We might call it something different.”

Dominic Keating at ST-SF 2024 (Photo: TrekMovie)

Source: TrekMovie.com

[thenancywheelerfanclub]

el & mike, robin & steve parallels

please tell me if this has been elaborated on more bc i can’t really put my thoughts to words. i've been rewatching s3 and kinda thought that steve and mike are similar as i watched steve want to be the hero and protect robin but “failing” (idk if that's the best way to put it but she's always like the brain, the one who figures stuff out and i feel like that's who steve wants to be)

mike + el and steve + robin parallels have been pointed out specifically with the shared music that plays over robin’s coming out and the milkvan confession scene (at the end of s3) but maybe there’s more there

i kinda started spiraling during the scene in ep6 after steve and robin fall after trying to get the scissors and robin brings up high school. she’s talking about a shared class and how she was obsessed with steve and how he never even noticed her. there could be some connections made with how mike idolizes el (also the character parallels can be switched around, i don't feel like this parallel hinges on them having a set character) BUT the part that sparked my attention was all the talk of wanting to be normal, and how all even when they try to be above, all losers just want to be normal and accepted. steve then goes on about how it’s not all good and that all the things the world tells you should matter is just bullshit

and now im going to exit my parallel kinda bc his next line can be connected elsewhere. “but i guess you have to mess up to figure things out, right?” i feel like this foreshadow mike’s arc really well, especially with what we saw in s4. he’s fucked everything up with el and will, specifically because of what the world has taught him to believe, but he has to. he would never be able to understand himself and his relationships without realizing what doesn’t work

there could also be an argument made where this parallel continues into s4 with will entering the picture as nancy (and robin kinda?? its not like a direct thing still) robin and steve know what they’re relationship is, nancy pushes them together because thats what she thinks they want

but then you could switch el and will around because robin’s pushing makes nancy consider a relationship with steve again (st*ncy does not deserve rights); i think after their fight, mike and el know where they stand (broken up, just friends) but will’s meddling has mike make his big confession and think that he needs this relationship

anyway, very sorry for the rambling, please please please elaborate on any of the ideas listed, i would really love to hear someone smarter talking about this

[kmze]

When stefan said 'I'll get Elena out of my life & get my own life back"(4×18),itfelt like he was yearning to be detached from the triangle BS and when asked specifically about this scene,Paul said he wanted Stefan to have a story of his own outside of MF because he felt Stefan worked better when he was not with the gang.Then he could return & see where his relationship stood with Damon & Elena.I think the writers should have gone with this.I mean yes at this point PW didn't know how far they were gonna go with DE and Plec was still talking about SC on open-ended terms.But I think Paul was probably the only cast member who had some say about his storyline.Early s6 jerk Stefan was probably all Paul's idea and he even admitted mechanic stefan was his pitch.A season's arc or half a season's arc as Special Guest Star on The Originals would have been great for him.At the beginning of tvd s5,even Candice was interested in crossing over.Although I wonder in that case if anyone would have stayed back to watch tvd. lol. (1/2)

2/2) I also think,if tvd was indeed commissioned to be a six season show then the decision to continue beyond s6 without Elena was on the producers,network and the actors who renewed their contract because all of them wanted the show to live even after Nina didn't change her mind.But then they continued to cater to the elena fandoms and actively sabotaged the last two seasons.They had the choice & opportunity to end the show on a high note instead of that ridiculous mess:the brothers sacrificing,elena becoming a doctor and maybe a flash forward of Caroline and Bonnie sitting on a beach at St. Tropez freed from all MF nonsense.

Well the actors all had six season contracts when they signed on, then after six seasons the actors decide if they want to renew or not. Nina didn't want to renew and the others wanted to stay on, I mean the show is not just Nina it's not even just the actors and producers there's hundreds of people who work on the crew, writing staff, production staff etc. All those people are not millionaires like Nina and shouldn't lose their jobs because she wanted to explore other things. I also think people give Paul too much credit for the schtick he does acting like he doesn't care about the show and doesn't remember anything at these cons because it's like whatever man. He's the first one signed up for these conventions and he's got a bourbon line based on the relationship he built with Ian on the show and being brothers so I don't know why people buy his "woe is me" act. While S7 is a mess it's not my least favorite season (that honor goes to S5) and the second half of that season was entertaining, I enjoyed it a lot more on rewatch. I mean from a SC perspective they got tons of great stuff I just think people care way too much about SV and CA since both were just filler props. And S8 was great for SC especially the first half, why would I not want to have two proposals, a wedding, I love you forevers and all the domestic stuff. For Bonnie as well even if I don't really care for BE that's a great ship for Bonnie and she deserved to have that love story.

[dangermousie]

Farscape rewatch - Losing Time, 3x09

Losing Time is a lovely ep I like (don’t I say that about almost all of them, though). I love that you never stop believing that both Moya John and Talyn John are ‘equal and original.’

And Moya John is going stir-crazy insane. John displaces his anxiety over Aeryn, his loneliness and missing her, into his obsession with wormholes. He displaces it sideways, to take his mind off. Makes sense to me. The crew should be grateful there is Aeryn in the world because otherwise obsessive Crichton would probably take over everything in the world :D Heck, he is still wearing the same shirt she gave him, days later. She gave him the shirt to distinguish him and it’s so symbolic because for him, selfhood is tied to Aeryn, she is the arbiter of real. (And he clearly has anxieties of whether he is a copy, see this ep. In a way, it’s a blessing John is already severely damaged by the time of the twinning. He has so many complexes and issues, one more, even a very severe one, won’t break him, he can just try to put it aside). I also really love the scenes on Scorpy’s command carrier, his new research facility. (Continuity, I love you!) This is where we first really learn about the Scarran threat (want to bet it was Scorpy who told Scarrans PKs have wormhole weapons, because he thought he could get them, and now must put his money where his mouth is). So here he is, studying the chip. I love how even the ‘bleed-over’ John is argumentative and opinionated and stubborn. Of course, if Scorpy was different, he would never have had that problem. When he got John on the Gammack Base in S1, if he’d only told him something to the effect of ‘OK, you are a spy. I will give you the tissue sample, and get Crais off your back, and help you use wormhole to go home, but you have to work in my research facility,’ John would have jumped at the chance (heck, he gave data to Furlow earlier). But to Scorpy, there is either subordinates or superiors, and utter abasement/domination. He doesn’t see others as autonomous beings. It took him years to see John that way. Hmmm, what else. I love Jool here, first time: scared and defiant and helpful. Quasisex with energy rider is funny. D’Argo rocks. St. John crack always makes me LOL. Good ep, obviously. 

[thiscrimsonsoul]

10 things for 10 people you'd like to know better!

Last song: "Somnia Memorias" from the Parasite Eve OST

Last book: Quite honestly, I've been reading nothing but environmental science textbooks lately since my boss wants us to review several to switch books and choose a new online platform for the class, heh.

Last film: Manos: The Hands of Fate, Rifftrax version (absolutely abysmal movie, but the riffing is hilariously top notch on this one, haha)

Last TV show: Farscape, my beloved, heh. I'm currently on S03E07 with my rewatch efforts. =)

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Sweet or savory usually, but I often agree to suffer for both Mexican and Thai food with the spice. XD

Relationship status: Single, but philosophically committed to a number of fictional characters, haha.

Last thing I Googled: A story I saw on CNN about a girl who graduated high school with honors but says she's illiterate? And is now suing the school for neglecting her? Sounds a lil' suss to me.

Current obsession(s): Farscape, FFXII, Caramels.com (seriously take my money, their caramels are SINFUL), and ultra-soft plushies like those of Jellycat and Plushie Dreadfuls (it's a sensory/tactile thing, heh).

Looking forward to: Continuing to watch Farscape now that my interwebs have been restored, St. Patrick's Day shenanigans, Spring flowers, warmer weather (but NOT the allergies, omg, I'm not ready, haha).

Last creative project: With me, it's usually always either making jewelry or writing, heh. Although I was working on some picture edits for Farscape muses over on my multimuse. We'll see how well they turn out and if I actually post any of them, lol.

Tagged by: @glitchexmachina Tagging: Anyone who wants to do this! ^_^

[dyrwoodan]

,

[primalsouls]

Ok so my polyamorous butt loves both Langa and Reki, but there are only a few oneshots on here that show them both together like that. Could you possibly write more if you have the time?

omg it's been such a looong time since i wrote for sk8 😭 i missed my boys orz

since it's been a long time since i wrote for them, they're gonna be a little ooc? i do know that reki can be like excited and fun and langa like quiet yet still determined to be out there, you know lol? but either way, they'll be somewhat ooc 😅

anyway, here's a little something for the meantime while i go rewatch sk8, i just know im not looking forward to seeing that guy 😬 lmao

also blueberry muffins are my fave （˶′◡‵˶）

[08/01/22] I've started this post last week and i just finished and oh man... i did not meant for it to be so long 💀 it was so supposed to be short but i got carried away lmao 😅 also i still haven't rewatch sk8 lol

anyway enjoy! hope you love it! <3

꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷

Sweet like You

pairing: reki kyan x gn! reader x langa hasewaga

theme(s): fluff

warning(s): none

꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷꒥꒷

(Name) stared out the window with their chin propped on the palm of their hand boredly as the teacher continued on about some chemistry problems and their equations written on the board, his back turned on the students. Their mechanical lead pencil twirled lazily in their fingers, a low sigh going through their nose. The young skater stopped listening to the lecture a few minutes ago. Class was already half an hour in. Their mind had long abandoned the subject of today's lessons, swimming down a path of old memories as their eyes stared at the passing clouds. It was a windy day. Their boyfriends mentioned doing some more skill practices after school during their lunchtime for one of Langa's upcoming races with one of the known skaters in the underground group which both boys refused to let (Name) in.

Although (Name) really didn't had any intentions of joining in the S organization. They weren't one for racings or competing against others. They had seen the injuries both Reki and Langa received. It broke their heart seeing their boys be cover in bandages. Such injuries brought an old childhood memory of theirs.

Back when they first started skating on their own, they would be cover in band-aids themselves after spending hours upon hours on learning how to ride a board. After an hour of struggling to step on the board without sliding off from it and earning themselves a scratch on one of their palms or knees, (Name)'s mother would bake them their favorite treat, a plate of warm, delicious blueberry muffins with a glass of milk beside it. Just from the thought of it in their memories made their mouth watered.

Before their mind wander further into their memories, the last bell of the school day rang throughout the whole building. Students begun to pack their stuffs while the teacher remind them of their lessons and their homework for the night, (Name) taking their time as the rest of their classmates rush out to hurry home.

Bored (colored) eyes looked at the school building as the owner stood beside the gates. They waited patiently for their boyfriends to meet up with them at the gates, as they promised during lunch. Squinting their eyes, (Name) saw a mop of baby bluer hair bouncing slightly as Langa ran up them with a determined look on his face.

"(Nickname)!" Langa called out as he reached them, his signature skateboard in hand while the other held his bookbag. "Ready to go? Reki said he would catch up to us later at the usual spot. One of his teachers held him back to get him back on track on his assignments." He explained. (Name) mouthed out an 'oh' as they nodded.

"Ah, I see... I imagined it was the English teacher, huh?" They said, shaking their head when Langa nodded. Though, they didn't mind starting on the training without Reki, (Name) wanted to hang out with both their boys. "How about we wait for Reki st my house? Besides, I've been thinking about making some blueberry muffins. We can make some together and eat them when Reki comes over." They suggested, looking at the other skater.

Lanha stared at his partner, a clear look of a debate going in his head.

"Okay." He answered after a moment of silence.

(Name) grinned and took his hand in theirs, intertwining their fingers as they led the way to find a grocery store.

It was getting close to evening. Reki had texted to the trio's group chat about coming over to (Name)'s house. Thankfully it was a Friday night, having the whole weekend to spend it over at their house while going out to get some training done. Langa and (Name) spent the rest of the time until Reki came back from school gathering the ingredients and measuring them up. From preparing the batter, to mixing the berries in to baking the muffins and letting them cool down after taking them out of the oven.

The duo heard furious knocks coming from the front entrance of the house. (Name) gestured to Langa to stay in the kitchen and place the muffins on plate as they went to check who was at the door. Their eyes beamed when familiar face grinning back at them.

"(Nickname)!" Reki announced, already wrapping his arms around the other skater. "Aah, I missed you!" He said, nuzzling his face against their shoulder. (Name) laughed as they returned the hug and patted his hair.

"It's only been a few hours after school, Reki." They said, chuckling at the cute pout the boy gave after pulling away from the hug to look at them.

"Still! It felt like days." Reki commented, moving away inside the house to let his partner close the door behind them. "Where's Langa? Didn't he came home with you?"

(Name) nodded over to the kitchen before heading back to it with Reki following behind. "Yeah, he did. We stopped by a store to buy some stuff to make my favorite muffins." They answered, grinning lazily when they saw Langa tried to keep a small pyramid of blueberry muffins together on the plate. He wore a concentration look on his face, little bit of his tongue stick out with his brows frowned down their forehead. "Langa~, Reki's here."

Cutting his attention away from a muffin falling down the top of the food pyramid, Langa stood back up with a smile. "Reki! Look, I helped (Nickname) made their favorite muffins." He said, pointing at the muffins with a proud smile on his features. Reki chuckled and nodded, walking over with (Name).

"It really does look delicious."

"Right! I hope they taste as good as my mom had done for me."

"They're cool down, so let's try them."

With Langa's suggestion coming into actions, each skater grabbed a muffin and took a bite into the treat.

"Ooh... They're so good!"

"Really? I think they're second to my mom's."

"Tastes sweet like you..."

Silence grew over the trio as Reki and (Name) looked over at Langa and his comment. Right in the exact moment after the comment left the blue-haired boy's lips, a rudy shade blush decorated (Name)'s cheeks.

"L-Langa, dude! Don't say such corny shit!" (Name) whined, pouting as they covered their face after putting the muffin back on the plate, growing flustered. Langa smiled as Reki laughed loudly.

"Haha! He's not lying, though!" Reki said, pulling their hands away. Once his partner looked at him, Reki stole a quick kiss from them. "See, you do taste like blueberry muffins, so sweet!" He teased, grinning at the other skater's face continued to burn from the teasing.

Witnessing the teasing, Langa huffed and took (Name) by their chin and made them face him, planting a quick kiss, too, surprising them further more as their flushed face grew heated one last time. They sweared they looked like a ripe tomato if the tease continue further. "Hm... Sweet..." Langa muttered, smiling at his partner. Reki grinned, nodding in agreement.

"Oh my gosh..." (Name) whispered under their breath, covering their face once more. "You guys are so corny..." They sighed, smiling a little as their heart fluttered against their chest. (Name) was glad to met the two boys. The duo always know how to get under their skin with the teasing and the affection. They don't mind it, though. It always brings a smile to their heated face and make their heart flutter in love.